On Solitude, and Why It Is Not Loneliness
A quiet essay on the difference between being alone and being lonely, and why the writing life depends on the first.
There is a confusion, particularly in the modern world, between solitude and loneliness. They are not the same thing. One is chosen. The other is inflicted.
Solitude is a room with a door you closed yourself. Loneliness is a room with a door someone else closed for you. The furniture is the same. The weather inside is entirely different.
The writing life depends on solitude. It depends on the willingness to sit, for hours at a time, in a room where nothing is happening except the slow arrival of sentences. If you cannot enjoy your own company, you will not finish a book. You will fill the silence with something else.
I have learned, over the years, to defend my mornings. Not aggressively. Simply firmly. The world will always have another meeting. The page will not.
If you are frightened of being alone, begin small. An hour, with the phone in another room, and a notebook open on the table. You may find, as I did, that the company you were avoiding was quite good after all.
